Due to the sellout of on-site accommodation, we have just made Friday and Saturday day tickets available for our upcoming event on Elmley Nature Reserve, Isle of Sheppey. A few weekend tickets are also still available, with plenty of affordable off-site accommodation available nearby (accessible by car or taxi). Nearby Sittingbourne has a Travelodge, Premier Inn and Holiday Inn, with a number of B&B, rental and camping options situated on the Isle of Sheppey itself. Off-grid Clifftop Camping, situated approximately 20 mins from the event site, looks to be a particularly lovely (and pocket friendly!) option. You can find a list of Sheppey taxi firms below to arrange transport to and from the site, as well as information about catching our free electric shuttle bus.
Poster: Will Rose
A reminder of what’s on offer…
Friday 15th May (included in weekend ticket, or £25 + booking fee day ticket)
Attendees are welcome on-site from 3pm. Once inside, you can walk, swim and visit the bird hides at your leisure. Gareth Fulton, Reserve Manager, will be giving a free introductory talk about Elmley’s Curlew recovery project and other conservation initiatives.
From 17:00
Caught by the River DJs ease us into the weekend with a selection of nature-adjacent tunes and field recordings. A chilled backdrop to getting your bearings, catching up with pals and taking a deep breath out. Drift in and out of the barn as you please.
19:00
French/British alt-pop singer songwriter Clémentine March takes to the stage, playing tracks from her just-released third album Powder Keg (PRAH Recordings). Influenced by Brazilian music, indie rock and Robert Wyatt, her music draws a map between the regions of the world where she’s lived.
20:30
Confronting thoughts about collectivism, our relationship with the natural world and the weight of consciousness with directness and purpose, esteemed 4-piece Modern Nature play songs from 2025’s critically acclaimed The Heat Warps.
21:30
Caught by the River DJs play the night out with more tunes to vibe, unwind and bliss out to.
Saturday 16th May (included in weekend ticket, or £45 + booking fee day ticket)
11:00
Talking to Ghosts: Memoir, Biography, Place and Time. Award-winning rural and nature writer and campaigner Nicola Chester speaks to CBTR’s Tallulah Brennan about how the ghosts of our past, present and future aren’t always human; are sometimes ourselves or people with relevance now, with something to say. How listening to, and interrogating them can help us understand what we’ve lost and how, so we can face the future with hope and action. This talk hinges on Nicola’s most recent book Ghosts of the Farm: the true story of two wannabe women farmers, 60-80 years apart in the same fields, and the ghosts of our pasts, present and futures. Nicola is a Guardian Country Diarist, and writes for BBC Countryfile Magazine and The RSPB as well as Caught by the River. She is Writer in Residence for a land rehealing project at Kintbury Chase and Eco Centre, and has contributed to anthologies such as Wild Service (ed Nick Hayes and Jon Moses), The Book of Bogs (ed Clare Shaw and Anna Chilvers) and the CPRE’s Future Rural (ed Adrian Cooper) She has appeared at Hay Festival among others and on BBC R4.
12:30
Are You Lost? Community and Nature in the Forest of Bowland and Beyond. Rob St John and Tallulah Brennan will discuss Rob’s recent project Are You Lost?, and what happens when artists connect with community in a meaningful way. Rob is an artist and writer based in rural Lancashire. His practice is focused on the blurrings of nature and culture in contemporary landscapes. He works primarily across installation, sound, moving image and text. His work, usually based on slow periods of fieldwork and socially-engaged practice, has been shown/heard at Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Barbican, The British Museum, The National Gallery, Tramway Glasgow, The Royal Geographical Society, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The British Textile Biennial, and many others. He has variously produced, edited and contributed to numerous publications, both artistic and academic.
13:30
Music to Watch Seeds Grow By with Wil Troup and Kayla Painter. What began as a soundtrack for the first signs of life from Tia & Wil of Ransom Note Records has sprouted across two growing seasons — ambient, minimalist & new-age soundscapes with the occasional cosmic detour. Here, Wil introduces a new work for the label by experimental artist and producer Kayla Painter, followed by a live performance from Kayla. There will also be more informal listening sessions from the label sprinkled throughout the day.
14:15
Make Some Space for Resistance. Expanding on her far-reaching work on community spaces, author Emma Warren considers our need for collective community space and action in a time of tech billionaires and the far right. Emma’s book Up the Youth Club: Illuminating a Hidden History (Faber, 2025) was named an Irish Times read of the year. Dance Your Way Home (2023) was a Guardian book of the year and formed the basis of last year’s summer season at the Southbank Centre. Emma is also the author of Document Your Culture (Sweet Machine, 2020), Steam Down (Rough Trade Books, 2019), and Make Some Space (Sweet Machine, 2019). A dual citizen of Ireland and the UK, her monthly radio show on Worldwide FM ran for six years.
15:15
Lamine — plant shop owner, and one half of plant and fungi biosonification duo Plants Can Dance — demonstrates how music can be made from plants’ biorhythms, using specimens collected from the Elmley site. This slot features a live performance from Lamine, as well as an opportunity to try out biosonification for yourself.
16:45
We Came By Sea: Horatio Clare in conversation with Tallulah Brennan. Off the back of his recent book We Came By Sea (Little Toller, 2025), Horatio Clare and Tallulah discuss human and humane approaches to people caught up in the ‘small boats’ crisis. Horatio is a Welsh writer and broadcaster. His acclaimed memoirs, travel and children’s books include Running for the Hills (Somerset Maugham Award), A Single Swallow, Down to the Sea in Ships (Stanford Dolman Award), and Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot (Branford Boase Award), and the ‘game-changing’ Heavy Light – Daily Telegraph. Horatio presents Is Psychiatry Working? on BBC Radio 4 and writes regularly for the international press. He also delivers training to NHS intervention teams and lectures in non-fiction at the University of Manchester.
17:45
The Music of Zakia Sewell’s Albion. Emma Warren and Zakia Sewell discuss Zakia’s recent book Finding Albion — an exploration of British national identity, folk culture and myth (Hodder Press, 2026) — accompanied by related music selections from Zakia. Zakia Sewell is a writer, DJ and broadcaster based in London. She hosts Dream Time on BBC Radio 6 Music, and used to host the flagship breakfast show on NTS Radio. For the past eight years she has been producing and presenting radio documentaries and podcasts for platforms such as BBC Radio 3 and 4, Tate and Camden Arts Centre. Her acclaimed four-part Radio 4 series My Albion was an inspiration for her book. Her writing has appeared in publications including Tate Etc., Resident Advisor and Weird Walk as well as in the essay collection This Woman’s Work. This will be followed by a DJ set from Zakia.
20:30
Along with his 5-piece band, composer and producer Andrew Wasylyk — whose arrangements span the breadth of contemporary-classical, ambient soundscapes, cinematic scores, spiritual jazz and experimental electronica — plays a headline set that is not to be missed. Wasylyk’s last 5 albums have been nominated for Scottish Album of The Year Award. This includes 2020’s, Fugitive Light And Themes Of Consolation, which entered the UK Official Jazz & Blues chart at #6 and was Gideon Coe’s (BBC Radio 6Music) Album Of The Year. His work has been displayed in National Galleries Of Scotland and collected by V&A Dundee.
21:45-late
Heavenly Jukebox is the DJ arm of the legendary Heavenly Recordings, who have been playing the finest records and tearing up the dancefloor and fields at festivals, club, gigs and parties since 1990. They are also the resident DJs at The Social in London and host a monthly radio show on Soho Radio.
Self-directed walking, exploring, swimming and bird-watching is available all weekend. As with Friday, Saturday daytime will see Reserve Manager Gareth Fulton giving a free introductory talk about Elmley’s Curlew recovery project and other conservation initiatives, and Elmley volunteers will be offering the opportunity to get your eyes round some hi-spec birding kit in the Welmarsh Hide (kind courtesy of Swarovski Optik).
Free bird tours, moth trapping workshops, printing workshops (with Rosa Amora and Riley Summer) and field recording workshops (with Rob St John) will be available throughout the day, with places allocated via a sign-up sheet on-site.
Sunday 16th May
Walk, swim and birdwatch on site at your leisure.
TRANSPORT
Our free electric shuttle, kindly provided by Elmley and operating between Swale station to the event site, will be available to meet the following trains. Places are free but need to be reserved in advance. Please contact gracesp [at] elmleynaturereserve [dot] co [dot] uk to book your place.
Friday 15th May from Swale Station to Elmley
Train arriving at 14:32 – shuttle slots available at 14:32 & 14:50
Train arriving at 15:32 – shuttle slots available at 15:32 & 15:50
Train arriving at 16:32 – shuttle slots available at 16:32 & 16:50
Saturday 16th May from Swale Station to Elmley
Train arriving at 10:32 – shuttle slots available at 10:32 & 10:50
Train arriving at 11:32 – shuttle slots available at 11:32 & 11:50
Sunday 17th May from Elmley to Swale Station
Shuttle slots available at 13:40 & 14:00 to catch the 14:22pm train to Sittingbourne
Shuttle slots available at 14:40 & 15:00 to catch the 15:22 train to Sittingbourne
Shuttle slots available at 15:40 & 16:00 to catch the 15:22 train to Sittingbourne
Outside of these times and availabilities, please arrange a local cab to transport you between the station and event site. Firms:
Sealine Taxis 01795 509999
Ocean Taxi Sheerness 07393 651268
Sheppey Transfers 07950 550284
For the more adventurous (and lighter-travelling!) attendee, it is also possible to walk to the Elmley site from Swale station (tide-dependent). Please consult tide times and plan your route carefully (at your own risk) if you are planning to reach the event this way.